As the massive hobgoblin starts to approach it draws the sword on its waist. The goblin is holding the sword with its left hand and Helo thinks that he might have immobilized the goblins right hand with that lucky blow.
Taking a gulp of air Helo doesn’t fell very reassured. He is not excited to see how skilled the goblin’s sword skills are. The goblin already picked apart Helo’s attempts at fighting it while using a spear.
Steading his shaking hands Helo isn’t sure if they are like that because of how hard it is becoming to hold off his instinctual desire or because he truly is nervous.
Berating his own weakness Helo looks into the eyes of the goblin and sees cunning and mockery. In that moment Helo’s control snaps just a little bit. It is like a dog chain that got caught on a piece of rotting wood. His instincts are still leashed but the hold is getting fragile.
Jumping forward Helo lets out a fully extended sweep. The goblin jumps back to dodge and dashes forward to strike a killing blow. It expects Helo to be unstable after that wide attack.
Showing more skill than the goblin expected Helo continues the sweep around and above his head. Sliding his right hand into a middle position on the naginata the blade suddenly stops. Helo is now in the upper offensive stance. Both hands are positioned above his head, Helo takes a final step and slashes down with everything he has.
With wide eyes the goblin that is now at a perfect distance to get hit, it tries to jump back. The slash cuts into the goblin’s forehead, down its left cheek and along its chest. The slash finally ends by cutting the goblins thigh, then into the ground.
Retaliating in anger the goblin raises his sword with his left hand and leaves a cut along Helo’s chest right below his neck. Flinching back Helo gets his naginata up and looks at the monster. Both are bleeding profusely from their cuts. The monster has a long vertical cut along it’s left side. Helo has a horizontal cut along his upper chest.
Wincing in pain Helo tries to raise the blade up but the cut also hit his shoulders. Seeing the weakness the now enraged goblin steps forward on its right leg and tries to hit Helo with an overhead strike. As it steps onto its left leg its thigh gives out.
This gives Helo just enough time to duck right and dodge under the blow. He catches the strike on the butt of his naginata, that is at waist height. Deflecting the blow furth and sending the monster off balance. Using that momentum Helo slashes along the monster side. Adding a horizontal cut to the monsters vertical one.
Now with a cross shaped cut along the monsters hip it loses its balance and falls to the ground. Jumping on the moment Helo falls forward and spears the monster to the ground. As the monster is struggling, he bites into the back of the Hobgoblins neck and drains a large amount of blood.
With a growl of contentment Helo wipes the blood from his lips and sits up on the corpse of the monster. Looking up into the fake sky Helo can hear as Micah approaches from the top of the hill over 100 meters away. His enhanced physical abilities truly amaze him.
Helo just sits there and lets the overwhelming vital energy flow through his system. He just enjoys the feeling while it lasts. Thirty seconds later as Micah casually approaches the energy starts to fad.
“Hey kid. I took my time here because they say not to get in between a wild animal and its prey.” Micah jokes with a laugh. He gestures between Helo and the Hobgoblin that he is sitting on.
With a snort Helo gets up and pulls his blade from the monsters back. “So, anything you learned.” Micah asks as they make their way to the exit.
“Ah. I only won because the monster lost itself into its instincts before I did.” Helo says.
“That is good. True but not completely. If you had your knives that would have been a much different fight. You lost the intention of your training in the end. Your supposed to be training to defend Alli and Hinata. This is supposed to be defensive. You’re doing offensive just fine.” Micah says to him in a lecturing tone. “What else?”
“The monster picked apart my stances and movements. If it kept that cool head it would have torn me apart.” Helo added.
“Yes, it’s skills are a lot more advanced that yours. You tried to use the same technique that you used on a lesser goblin but it used its knee to interrupt you.” Micah nods. “Those are the two things that I wanted you to learn. This is a training that all the ‘Moon-Staff’ uses go through. Normally it is level 11 and with common goblins but I thought you needed something special.”
“First, you learn that you might know the basic stances, how to flow between them and incorporate attacks. But you need to understand that there are advanced techniques specifically designed to counter them.” Micah says with a smile. “This is the art of war. Understand yourself and your enemy.”
“Second, you realize through your own experience and that of the Hobgoblin. You need to learn what happens when you let your instincts cloud your judgment. The hobgoblin was a much better technical fighter than you. But it quickly got lost in its own desire to kill.” Micah grabs Helo’s shoulder and looks him in the eye.
“This is important Helo. Especially for you. Your instincts are strong and with your daggers and an order to hunt, you might become the best. But when you are supposed to defend, you can’t lose your cool.” He lets go of Helo after Helo nods his head.
As they finish walking to the exit Micah speaks, “You lost your cool in that fight. You won because of it. But I don’t want to celebrating that. You were supposed to be training you defense and counter attacks. So, in truth you failed.”
With a nod Helo looks at his feet while he is walking. “I understand. I messed up.”
“You did. The hobgoblin was designed by Anthony to quickly lose it’s cool. If you waited just two more blows it would have given you the opening you needed. Then you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” Micah says to him.
“I just. Feel so limited, standing there in a defensive stance.” Helo says as he looks up at Micah.
“I understand. We are not trying to turn you into something you are not, Helo. You may never start preferring the polearm to your knives. But there will come a day where the situation will. Then, you will be thankful that you got the training. You might not like it. But you have the skills to succeed even if it isn’t what your best at.” Micah says then exits the dungeon as he is walking away, he mutters. “Although your second best is still better than most other people’s best.”
Before Micah can step through the exit portal Helo asks. “What about the chest?”
Turning around he says, “Leave it.” Then he leaves. Feeling a little frustrated to leave the chest, he steps past and can feel his instinctual desire flare up to not leave the loot behind. Stepping into the cavern Helo is a little frustrated and is about to speak up when Micah speaks first. “Good. That is another test we do.”
This catches Helo off guard and his annoyance starts to bleeds away. “What do you mean?”
“Well by all rights in the multiverse that loot was yours. But we always tell our trainees to leave the loot then walk out. If they take it and tell us we move on. If you take it and hide it, we demote them from ‘Moon-Style’ training. But, if they leave the loot, we let them know that with Anthony’s control we have some unique options. Just like the tutorial dungeon your now in what is considered a training phase. Whenever you enter the dungeon with me, on that floor. All the bosses you kill will add to the final loot.” Micah says and he leads Helo out.
“So, it is like the tutorial dungeon or if you start fighting and don’t stop through multiple bosses. Right?” Helo isn’t sure but that was the feeling he got when he was in the tutorial and killed the four lion alphas.
“Exactly. There are a few quests that we can activate to have the dungeon give increased loot. Like quests given by the dungeon. When you are about to tier up you can enter the dungeon and try to get as far as possible. The further you get the better your rewards. They can even help you gain better classes.” Micah adds with a hit of pride.
“All clan owned and dungeon master-controlled dungeons can do this. But personal I think ours is the best. Anyway kid. You did good. Now I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” At that Micah turns and with a cloud of dust and a slight whistling of air he disappears.
Honestly Helo is surprised that there wasn’t a more aggressive surge of air. With a shrug Helo heads back home. It has been a long day of training and he is ready for bed.
A little under two months have gone by, its October 26th. A lot has changed for the party. Hinata is now 16, she has to option to go to the clan’s school. She chose to wait for Alli. Her birthday was September 12th. The group had a big celebration and Hinata’s mother and father even flew in to visit.
Helo was surprised by the respect that they showed him. Helo had no idea how to show his respect but he tried to do everything Hinata told him to the day before. But Hinata’s parents were incredibly kind to him. It was a new feeling for him; Micah is a great teacher and likes to mess around. But he has never really had anyone in his life that treated him like Hinata’s parents did. It reminded him of Ms. Accleas.
On another note, they all have been gaining about one to two levels a week. That growth has been slowly tapering off. The higher they go up in level the more slowly they are gaining them.
Alli and Hinata both hit level 33. At thirty they both gained a new skill. Hinata choose the skill ‘Illusional Cloak’. Due to the work, she has been putting into strengthening her bloodline the skill started at uncommon rarity.
Illusional Cloak: Cloak the skill caster in an illusion that makes her invisible to others. Has a small effect to lower others awareness of the caster. Can be used once every 30 seconds.
The secondary effect acts like a weak ‘notice me not’ spell. It makes it so that if someone happens to see a blade of grass moving weirdly or odd movement of wind there is a chance the person will just ignore the oddity.
The skill pairs perfectly with Hinata’s ‘Illusional Strike’. Now she can create a physical illusion to attack while stepping out of the illusion and moving unseen.
Alli’s skill selection was actually the decision to combine her ‘Runic Conjuration’ and ‘Arcane Construct’. With her choice the skill is actually at low rare tier now. She is the first person in the party to gain a rare skill. The skill name changed to ‘Runic Construct’.
Runic Construct (Rare): Create an enchanted construct in any shape. Can act as an array platform for runic spells. Spells can be used every 10 seconds. (Limit 30 runes)
After testing the skill, they learned two things. One, she can only use the full thirty rune limit five times before it drains her mana. Two, she can’t empower a basic bolt or spear rune more than 10 times, if she does the rune will explode. With this Alli has started learning tier 2 runes.
With this growth both Alli and Hinata now have just under 300 stat points. This comes from gaining stats through effort as well. Hinata is at 295 and Alli is at 299. Hinata has a mix of vitality and intelligence as the main stat. Alli has intelligence as her main.
The only other team mate who passed the level thirty mark was Gabi. She was finally able to modify her ‘Damage Enhancement’ skill a few days before she hit level thirty. Gabi was worried that she would have to use her skill choice to upgrade her old skill.
The old skill became ‘Strength to the Bloody Dancer’ it was a very personal skill for her. The final gift from her parents along with her combat style. It ended at peak uncommon with only a small push needed to get too rare. The skill changed its focus lightly; it now adds a marginal an increase to agility over strength. Along with that skill upgrade, Gabi learned that she had a blood affinity. It wasn’t very strong but it was the first affinity that she found.
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Strength to the Bloody Dancer (Uncommon): every hit that lands on the skill user increases their agility, strength and endurance by .5%, up to 200 percent. The higher the boost the higher the strain on the body.
The affinity paired well with her berserker type class. She is hoping to find a different one before reaching tier 2 though. With her reaching level 30 Gabi also got a new skill this skill went along with her affinity and is called ‘Surging Veins’, the skill empowers the blood in her veins increasing her physical abilities. The focus is on agility with a little strength.
Surging Veins (Uncommon): Empowers blood in the body to increase physical abilities, increase agility and strength by a large amount for 30 seconds. Causes stamina fatigue once ended.
Gabi liked how her skills changed focus. Her class focuses on strength and vitality. But her dance like fighting style only requires enough strength to swing her axe. Then it needs more agility.
Luna, Aiko, Cody, and Kenneth are all at level 29 and about to reach 30. They need one more dungeon run to break into the thirties. Kenneth should already be there; he started ahead of the others. But he has been showing up less and less. He is spending more time with Calain and even missed a dungeon run.
Cody was able to upgrade his ‘Duplicate Barrage’ skill into ‘Ice Arrow Barrage’. The upgrade increases its base damage, along with adding elemental damage. The only down side is that the skill is now weak to fire.
Ice Arrow Barrage (Uncommon): Condense Ice Arrows that sprout from a single fired arrow. Initial split creates 4 ice arrows. Every second after, the fired arrows split more based on condensation. Max 100.
With some testing they learned that the new skill is a lot better. When used the arrow turns into five, but the four ice arrows are more powerful that a normal arrow. If the arrows fly for more than a second it duplicates one time to be nine ice arrows and one normal. But it becomes incredible when paired with Lelai. Any duplication after the initial is boosted by condensation. Shooting from or through her created mist makes the second split go from a total of ten arrows to twenty. Each arrow splits three times.
A lobbed shot paired with Lelai’s mist reached the max arrows within three seconds of flight. The arrows look like a white glistening cloud as the flew through the sky.
Based on Helo’s opinion Cody’s most foundational skill also upgraded. His ‘Stationary Enhancement’ also upgraded. It became ‘Cold Enhancement’
Cold Enhancement (Uncommon): Skill radiates ice into the surroundings, freezing the ground and air. Cold air circulates back to you increasing the power of your body and arrows with ice mana. Skill stays active as long as you stay within the cold aura you radiate.
This upgrade made Cody difficult to stand around while he was shooting but it greatly empowered his arrows. The skill worked in a cycle of cold. The long he stayed in place the colder it would become. The colder it became the stronger he became. The stronger he became the colder air he could produce.
It was a unique quirk of his Frost Giant constitution. His ability to create ice wasn’t just a magical effect. It also came from his body. So, a skill like ‘Cold Enhancement’ is foundational from someone like Cody. His boosting skill doesn’t harm his body like Gabi’s does.
For Aiko her skills took the traditional growth path. Her skill ‘Heal’, became ‘Restoring Light’. With the skills growth she also found that she had an affinity for light magic. Her ‘Protect’ skill became ‘Reflection Protect’. The new skill reflects a portion of magic-based damage back at the caster.
Restoring Light (Uncommon): Heal an individual with a burst of restoring light. Can be cast once every 3 seconds.
Reflection Protect (Uncommon): Protect an individual in the safety of the light. Reflects a minor portion of any magic-based damage back at the caster. Can be used once every 10 seconds.
Luna’s growth went in a way she didn’t expect but she appreciated. Her ‘Haste’ skill upgraded into ‘Quickening Tempo’. This skill helped out Luna’s ability to cast her skills because all it requires is a constant tempo to stay active.
Quickening Tempo (Uncommon): Increase the physical and mental speed of all allies. Costs extreme mana to activate, lasts as long as you keep up a beat.
The high cost of the skills activation means that she can only use it once per day. If she needs to use it early, she might be able to get another cast in. Her next skill to upgrade was ‘Strengthening Voice’, this skills upgrade was ‘Shout of Empowerment’. The skill made it so that she doesn’t need to hold any kind of note or beat to activate the skill. Due to this change it costs more mana, but has a shorter duration. As a positive change the increase is higher.
Shout of Empowerment (Uncommon): Increase the physical strength of allies that hear this shout. Can also help improve moral.
The changes in Luna’s new spells meant that her primary focus was now on weaking enemies with sustained debuffs. Her buffs were taxing to use, but they could make the difference in a difficult fight.
People with skills like Luna’s, are the kind of people that cities protect and keep away from the public eye. Being able to spread a powerful buff to all allies’ is an incredible ability. But her lack of protective abilities means that she is an easy target to quickly weaken an opponent.
After two months of training and growth the entire team can see a massive change in their levels and skills. That wasn’t the only thing to change, they have all grown in their perspective fighting styles as well. Micah has continued to train them twice a week. Due to this the entire party is making great strides in their fighting techniques.
Helo has also made progress forward. His leveling speed has slowed considerably due to one of his dungeon days being filled with training. But because of that Micah put some more Australian Homebrew on the line to get Anthony to add an Alpha and a pack onto the floor that they are on.
After two months of training Helo is confidently battling the floor 19 Hobgoblins with the naginata. He is also able to fight to territory boss without getting out maneuvered in the fight. Micah is still refusing to teach Helo any advanced techniques but he is showing Helo some bo-staff techniques.
Helo’s naginata is intentionally shortened to just shorter than himself, so these techniques work for him. One of the ways to switch which side you are facing is to pull the naginata into the upper offensive stance, take a step to shift your feet and then go back into the middle stance. All this transition requires is a simple switching of the hand positions to raise the naginata, then you take a step forward or backward and lower the naginata.
In the bo-staff technique Helo spins his naginata while he is switching his hands and taking a step. This doesn’t quicken the transition but it does make the naginata do a reverse strike, a butt strike and a forward strike. If each of these strikes land Helo is in a good position to quicky attack with the opposite end.
Now the true reason for Helo learning bo-staff techniques is that the BrightMoon clan’s ‘Moon-Staff’ style uses these spins to create projections to block and attack.
To demonstrate Micah took out a bo-staff and started spinning it around his body at tremendous speeds. His hand were a blur and the staff spun in his front, back and sides as a twirling comet. As the speed built up, projections of the bo-staff were left behind, eventually it looked like four bo-staffs were spinning around Micah at the same time.
Then Micah started moving. His movements were graceful and in a constant circle. In the end it looked like he was preforming a ceremonial dance, but one that would end in a bludgeoning. As Micah stopped, he had the bo-staff held in one hand that was face up. The end of the bo-staff was tucked under his elbow. “This is a good way to hold your weapon. From its tucked position you can swing quickly and with force. You can also spin it from one side to the other.” Micah demonstrates how to spin the staff from one elbow to the other.
“Now look at the circle. This is why this technique is so powerful.” Pointing at the circle he danced in while he was wielding the bo-staff, Helo’s jaw dropped as he saw that Micah was moving around a single point. One large enough for a person to stand in.
Thinking back to Micah’s movements, he was constantly spinning not just the bo-staff but himself in a way that the bo-staff always spun on the outside. This made a protective circle large enough to shield another person that would have had four defensive projections. “That is amazing.” Helo said.
“Good kid. Now you understand.” Micah says. And Helo did now. He understood that the style and weapon he was using was great at defensive fighting. But he never realized that he was being trained to do something like that.
In-between his fights with the goblins and lessons with Micah, he is fighting the packs of wolves. This let him gain steady experience even if it wasn’t a ton.
It was now night time on Friday October 26th. The group is sitting down to relax in the living room to a movie. They didn’t go visit any new towns this week, so everyone is relaxing.
Throughout the last two months Micah told Helo not to check his status sheet. Finally getting the okay to now Helo looks it through.
Class: Shaded Predator Level: 19 (24,458/1,033,000) (9,000 + 1,024,000)
He only gained six levels in that time, it was less than his party but not as much as he expected. But his dexterity, endurance and strength grew from his training with Micah. Helo also noticed that his Intelligence stat grew as he got better with his enchanting.
Due to your efforts, you have gained +2 to dex, end, and str. You have also gained +3 to int.
You have gained six levels. Bringing you from 13 to 19. Due to your tier, race and class you gain +12 to Vit, Will, and Agl. You gain +6 to Per and Dex. You gain +12 free stat points.
With his free points Helo choose to bring his Will and Vit to 50. Also, his End and Int to 20.
Looking further into his notification Helo can see that his work on his skills also paid off. One thing that Helo was happy to learn was that due to him have a pseudo tier 3 class, a powerful bloodline and an aura, his skills can upgrade into rare easier.
Rare is when a class and its skills started getting more personal. The person needs to have an understanding of themselves before they can tier up into rare. For Helo this is easier, his powerful bloodline means that he already knows what his affinities are and his instincts mean that it is easier understand himself and his desires.
Helo made some progress on upgrading his ‘Dashing Lunge’ and ‘Fang Extension’. His dark energy still made the skill forms deteriorate before they would mix. But he spent some time working on the more physical aspects of his bloodline. While he was alone in the dungeon, he would drain a monster and test out his ability to use his vibrant golden bloodline energy in his skills.
He wasn’t able to get them stable enough for the skill to evolve but Helo was able to see how they worked together. His ‘Fang Extension’ skill actually worked in the opposite direction. He doesn’t use the skill often but when it was mixed with his bloodline it gained the ability to drain the vitality of those it was stuck into.
Helo has to channel the skill, he can’t lose focus, and he has to keep holding his blade. But it was able to drain vitality to keep his own physically enhanced state going. The other issue of the skill is that it drains a massive amount of bloodline energy to use.
Helo has to have at least an entire basic goblin’s worth of vitality in his body to activate the skill. That is about one major heal or thirty-seconds of physical boosts.
The skill can Help him regain the used energy but it is a risk due to its large energy requirement.
His ‘Dashing Lunge’ skill when enhanced by his bloodline’s energy spreads to his entire body. It gives a massive boost to his speed and strength. It draws a heavy channel of golden energy. But, his two skills when they are paired together makes Helo a monster. If he can keep a hand on a stabbed blade Helo can drain enough energy to activate his enhanced ‘Dashing Lunge’ and ‘Fang Extension’ at the same time. This drains his enemy’s vitality, while giving Helo a massive boost to his already enhanced physical abilities. Being in that state also means that his regeneration is in overdrive.
Happy with that he learned Helo goes back to his notifications and finds the one that made him think about his two skills.
Your skill ‘Crippling Blow’ has evolved into ‘Forced Still’.
Forced Still (Rare): This skill is activated and can be used on a hand or any weapon. Sends a burst of energy into the nervous system injecting it with a combative will (Mental Energy). Cutting off any connection to that location for a moment and locking all muscles. This can injure an individual’s nervous system. Can be used once every minute and deals massively increased damage if struck at a weak point. Last for a few seconds.
The skill can be used to channel bloodline energy; it will force that physical and mental location into a still state. If this is used the skill will be unusable for one day.
The new skill had a much shorter duration. That was the only downside that Helo could think of. But in the end his fighting style was short and brutal a few seconds or a minute didn’t matter much to him.
The bonus is that the effect is much greater, completely locking a location and even dealing damage that might mess with someone’s motor functions. It still has the same ability to increase damage if it strikes a weakness and an added ability to be put into a throwing blade.
The greatest upgrade is the skills ability to channel his bloodline energy. If he uses his bloodline, it has the effect that he saw in the berserker fishman. The skill forces the body and mind into a still state. Shutting off skills, regen, and even energy movement.
Finally getting to his status Helo is really impressed with his growth. He has a rare skill and his stats are looking great.
Name: Hellesion’Kai’Vital’Spiratam
Tier: 1
Bloodline: Tier 2 Vampire?
Title: Nature’s Alpha (Epic)- This title augments your aura to be more connected to nature around you. Increases the efficiency of Vitality, Will, and Perception by 25%. Gain x4 to experience when killing an alpha and its pack in a nature themed type dungeon.
Gear: Alpha Wolf Hide Bracers (Epic), Boxers of Infinite Regeneration (Epic), A mother’s first gift, a father’s first lesson. (Mythic/Hidden) (Rare), Rose Hoodie/Haori and Jogger Collection. (Uncommon), Dark Steel Kukri (Uncommon), Stylus for the Manaless (Rare)
Aura: Null Presence – your aura passively breaks down external energy phenomena in range. By focusing your aura, you can concentrate your effort on a single phenomenon. Due to ‘Dark Curse’ this works best on Mana.
Age: 15
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 19 (24,458/1,033,000) (9,000 + 1,024,000)
Stats: 260
- Str: 15 (+5%)
- Agl: 40 (+15%)
- Dex:28 (+15%)
- Per: 37 (+30%)
- Vit: 50(+40%)
- End: 20 (+15%)
- Int: 20 (+5%)
- Will: 50 (+40%)
Racial Skill: 5
- Greatly Enhanced Perception (Instincts) (Rare)
- Greatly Enhanced Natural Energy (Mental/Physical) (Rare)
- Regeneration (???)
- Major Vitality Siphon? (???)
- Dark Curse (???)
- Primary(N/A)
- Secondary(N/A)
Primary Class Skill: 3
- Forced Still (Rare)
- Dashing Lunge (Uncommon)
- Fang Extension (Uncommon)
Skills: 4
- Identify (Basic)
- Natural Meditation (Uncommon)
- Dagger Mastery (Uncommon) -> Twin Fang of the Beast (Uncommon)
- Polearm Mastery (Uncommon) -> Moon-Staff (Uncommon)
With Helo’s growth in his weapon mastery’s, Micah said it was time for Helo to learn more advanced techniques. For Helo’s own knife training he also started trying to learn the more advanced techniques. All he needs is ot learn an energy technique and his weapon masteries will turn into styles.